Could micro payments save the news business?

When you place content on the web, you are doing it for some purpose:

• You may want to show your expertise.
• You may want to drive traffic to sell ads.
• You may want to sell a product or service.

Whatever your reason, your ultimate purpose is to drive some business agenda, for the news business that purpose has grown unclear in the last few years. Most news organizations have been late to the game on the Internet (as I wrote in News Business Declined Due to Lack of Vision) or have failed to understand how to operate online (as I wrote in Mayer Says Google Not Responsible for Newspapers' Decline), but one thing is for sure, newspapers have to figure out how to make money online and one way to do that is with micro-payments.

Micro-payments are small one-time payments for a given piece of content. Newscorp wants to try this model with Wall Street Journal content. It really depends how much they would charge for these one-time payments. If they kept them cheap using the iTunes model, they could be successful, assuming the content is good enough, you can't find similar content for free elsewhere and people are willing to pony up for good content.

It's not clear yet how these models will work, but perhaps people could be willing to pay for premium content, something over and above the standard fare they get everywhere else. It remains to be seen if a public raised on free content will be willing to make that change, but I would say, it offers publications an alternative revenue source. If they do it right, it might not rescue the news business, but it could certainly help them.

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